692 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

c091n87 wrote...


See, if people listen carefully, the Catalyst notes that EDI and the Geth die, *but* Shepard will die as well. Yet, if you have a high enough EMS, then Shepard doesn't die. Isn't that kind of a hint that the kid may be lying to you? One of those subtle hints that I talked about earlier.

Not quite sure where you're going with this.

[mopotter]

AlanC9 wrote...

mopotter wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...
More options were available, just that none of them were palatable. I don't think your dissatisfaction stems from lack of options but rather the nature of the options given.

It's not like MEHEM adds options.

No but it gives me two options I can replay for the next 10 years or so. Reapers are destroyed and  Shepard, Edi and the Geth actualy survie or not depending on the ems score.  

Sure. But that's what CronoDragoon and I were saying. The number of options isn't the point.

Then maybe I agree with some of what you say and am just not comprehending at this time.  but will have to figure it out latet after the meds for dental work wear off and i can find the rigth keys along with my brain.

[AlanC9]

mopotter wrote...
 <sigh> I need to learn text talk or abriveations. I goggled SM and couldn't find anything so assuming sucide mission.

Yep. BSN jargon. SM, LM, LI, .... we've got a lot of those.

If we are talking about sucide mission - I loved it just the way it was and would not have wanted anything major changed.  Minor - armor.  and some better controle in the voice acting.  Shepard sounded like a cat in heat talking to Jacob and that was bad, just plain bad..   But that stuff I can live with, the game was great fo me.

I wasn't all that impressed with the SM myself, but mileages will vary, of course. I though it was OK, if a bit obvious. Not a fan of letting players do all the LMs at their leisure, but that's not a problem with the SM itself. 

[Dean_the_Young]

CronoDragoon wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
The point is that adding more choices wouldn't have been likely to help you, since the design is about making the choices hard. The multiple choices weren't there to give everyone an option he'd be completely happy with in the first place, so any new choice Bio added to the current would have been flawed in some key way. Maybe they might have had an accident and you would have found the new choice acceptable while all the others aren't. But that's an odd thing to hope for.

Edit: I guess my real point is that you're opposed to the fundamental concept of the ending choice design, rather than the particular implementation.

The counterpoint here would be that the hardness of a choice can be determined either by the severity of consequences or the viability of alternatives, or a combination of both. I think Iakus wants choices with few undesirable effects, but well-balanced positives.

If iakus had a history of supporting a balance of good and bad, I'd probably agree with that. But he  doesn't- his proposals pretty much fixate on reducing the signature 'bad' of Destroy, and make no attempt to balance anything else against it. He's pretty much in it for the golden ending, with at most a token cost he doesn't have an issue with to cover it.

Which is a shame, because your point has a lot of validity. The ME3 endings focused more on the costs, not the pluses, of the Crucible, which left people ignorring the whole end of the Reaper War that was universal and asking what they would get out of it.

It's like the classic balance of punishments and rewards for motivating behavior. In theory, all punishments is an effective (and even cheaper) way to motivate people to desired actions, but in practice a lack of reward incentives can see a lot of waste and lack of motivation.

Of course choice without enough gravity of consequence becomes relatively...well...inconsequential. Do you want cake or ice cream? type of thing.

Do you want the Reapers dead and no one else killed, or do you want a kickass invincible fleet and no one else killed? 

Only less difference.

[Hurbster]

Nope, the ending is still a right load of half-arsed rubbish and a disgraceful way to end a trilogy.

[Ithurael]

c091n87 wrote...

Hurbster wrote...

Nope, the ending is still a right load of half-arsed rubbish and a disgraceful way to end a trilogy.

But its an ending, right? Thing is, as long as its an ending, then Bioware technically doesn't owe people anything. People seem to have this idea of since they poured hundreds of hours into a game series, the ending *has* to be good. It can't end up in a way that is not very satisfying. You bought Mass Effect 3, played it, and it had a "bad" ending. For you anyways. Might have been bad for you, but not everyone felt that way.

A quick note. Not all of us 'anti-enders' hate the ending because it was 'too sad' we don't like the ending because of the retcons, plotholes, lack of war assets,/final mission variation, and narrative continuity issues it has. I am fine and in fact love the bitter sweet part of the ending - the three choices were perfect (minus sythesis I suppose but it was ok maybe). But the ending was executed so awefully IMO that there is no way I can replay the trilogy (and I haven't since leviathan - as it was teased it would alter the ending). Note that execution does not equal themes or symbolism.

Modifié par Ithurael, 16 janvier 2014 - 03:41 .

[Iakus]

c091n87 wrote...

Bioware didn't impose a canon ending here, and instead let you decide what it all means. Making your own mind up and deciding for yourself is better than Bioware telling you everything and deciding for you. In a game about player choice no less.

And if what you think doesn't line up with Bioware's "art", what you think it means is...meaningless...

[Iakus]

c091n87 wrote...

iakus wrote...
And if what you think doesn't line up with Bioware's "art", what you think it means is...meaningless...

So what I think doesn't mean anything, because only Bioware's official word counts?

I think EC made that abundantly clear.

As Henry Ford said: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

[AlanC9]

Ithurael wrote...
A quick note. Not all of us 'anti-enders' hate the ending because it was 'too sad' we don't like the ending because of the retcons, plotholes, lack of war assets,/final mission variation, and narrative continuity issues it has.

You understand where the confusion comes from, right? 

Fans who couldn't accept retcons shouldn't have liked ME2.

Fans who couldn't accept plotholes shouldn't have liked either game.

Fans who couldn't accept a lack of final mission variation shouldn't have liked ME1.

And narrative continutiy is awfully squishy.

It doesn't help that people keep pushing fixes that fix the sad part while not adressing any of the other things you mention.

Modifié par AlanC9, 16 janvier 2014 - 04:06 .

[FlamingBoy]

c091n87 wrote...

Hurbster wrote...

Nope, the ending is still a right load of half-arsed rubbish and a disgraceful way to end a trilogy.

But its an ending, right? Thing is, as long as its an ending, then Bioware technically doesn't owe people anything. People seem to have this idea of since they poured hundreds of hours into a game series, the ending *has* to be good. It can't end up in a way that is not very satisfying. You bought Mass Effect 3, played it, and it had a "bad" ending. For you anyways. Might have been bad for you, but not everyone felt that way.

I think your playing fast and loose with the term ending.

Edit: from the article you hyperlinked

Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending.
BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than
answers after finishing the game, - mike gamble

Modifié par FlamingBoy, 16 janvier 2014 - 04:08 .

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...

c091n87 wrote...

iakus wrote...
And if what you think doesn't line up with Bioware's "art", what you think it means is...meaningless...

So what I think doesn't mean anything, because only Bioware's official word counts?

I think EC made that abundantly clear.

As Henry Ford said: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

Are you two talking about the same kind of thoughts here? Maybe I've lost the thread.

Modifié par AlanC9, 16 janvier 2014 - 04:13 .

[dreamgazer]

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

c091n87 wrote...

iakus wrote...
And if what you think doesn't line up with Bioware's "art", what you think it means is...meaningless...{smilie}

So what I think doesn't mean anything, because only Bioware's official word counts?

I think EC made that abundantly clear.

As Henry Ford said: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

Are you two talking about the same kind of thoughts here?

Who the hell knows.

[Almostfaceman]

c091n87 wrote...
Besides what Mike said doesn't classify as advertising, and all those promises go out the window when you buy the game. As long as they answered 98% of the questions and left the ending a bit vague, then they didn't lie about it.

[Iakus]

c091n87 wrote...


So you have to have Bioware tell you what to think? Instead of deciding for yourself what it means? In a game about player choice?

No, I don't.  But Bioware clearly doesn't care what I think.  Or what my choices were.

I think, you, Mr. Iakus are playing the wrong kind of game. No offense, you might want to find something else to play that doesn't require you to make any decisions if you just want to go by Bioware's word every time and have them make your decisions for you.

I already have.  It's called Mass Effect 3.

Well some people out there didn't have any questions and the ending made complete sense to them. May have not to you, but you're not everyone.

Neither are you.  

And you do realize that there are people who understand perfectly well what the endings' intentions were.  And don't like it because of that.  Not because they're too dim to figure it out, as you continue to insinuate.

[AlanC9]

FlamingBoy wrote...

Edit: from the article you hyperlinked

Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending.
BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than
answers after finishing the game, - mike gamble

I'm not sure that's fair to Lost, actually. 

But most of the ME questions were answered. Synthesis is a little vague, but outside of that? 

Modifié par AlanC9, 16 janvier 2014 - 04:16 .

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

c091n87 wrote...

iakus wrote...
And if what you think doesn't line up with Bioware's "art", what you think it means is...meaningless...{smilie}

So what I think doesn't mean anything, because only Bioware's official word counts?

I think EC made that abundantly clear.

As Henry Ford said: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

Are you two talking about the same kind of thoughts here?

Who the hell knows.

I'm not even sure we're speaking the same language at this point.  He may be trying to hint at IT.  I'm not sure.

[Qutayba]

Like most, I've made my peace with the ending. But I think the underlying flaw wasn't the content of the ending - its details - but in its style. They should have shown rather than told.

You need only compare the endings of ME2 to ME3 to see what I'm talking about. The final march through the Collector base gave each character a chance to shine, not just through dialogue, but by doing something. Likewise, Shepard is right there in the fight, too, making choices in the midst of combat. All the game mechanics were present.

In the ending of ME3, your final interaction with the characters are through dialogue trees while your friends are standing around waiting or through a vid-com. Very static. It would be a better sendoff to have them be doing things in the battle for the last time we see them in-game - even better if they're doing things with Shepard. Likewise, the encounter with the Catalyst is essentially a dialogue tree of deep philosophy. Regardless of whether or not the philosophical stuff made sense to you, the game basically ends with really long exposition. The fact that it's divorced from all your choices in the game and series just makes it worse.

I just hope the writers learned something; I feel I did. Despite the heated tempers, there were actually a lot of great threads about story-telling, art, and "ownership" of fictional universes. The Great BioWare Forum Fire of 2012 is rightly infamous, but I'm hoping BioWare and other gaming companies will be better for it in the long run.

[FlamingBoy]

AlanC9 wrote...

FlamingBoy wrote...

Edit: from the article you hyperlinked

Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending.
BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than
answers after finishing the game, - mike gamble

I'm not sure that's fair to Lost, actually. 

But most of the ME questions were answered. Synthesis is a little vague, but outside of that? 

who made the crucible, how does it work, how are we able to build the crucible with out any idea what is function beyond "weapon" and plans that are never specified to the player, why does the crucible have 3 functions, why is the catalyst literally living on the citadel since the beginning of time and no one thought to find him, why does the catalyst take the form of a child, what is the logic behind the citadel and crucible being connected to each other, what are the "variables" that the catalyst talks about, who or what are the keepers, why give an option (destroy) that will set the cycle over again, the reapers were described as "independent nations" in earlier game why is the opposite true in me3, why are the leviathans considered unimportant to the main story unless through a damn paywall.

Among others

You'll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things- mike gamble

Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending.
BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than
answers after finishing the game- mike gamble


[u]As per the quote I provided, the answers need to be found in the ME3 and not the theories set up by other fans.

Modifié par FlamingBoy, 16 janvier 2014 - 04:33 .

[FlamingBoy]

The only thing that turned out true

"You'll definitely feel it." - Mike Gamble

Perhaps not in the way anyone was expecting

[FlamingBoy]

c091n87 wrote...

iakus wrote...

c091n87 wrote...

So what I think doesn't mean anything, because only Bioware's official word counts?

I think EC made that abundantly clear.

So you have to have Bioware tell you what to think? Instead of deciding for yourself what it means? In a game about player choice?

I think, you, Mr. Iakus are playing the wrong kind of game. No offense, you might want to find something else to play that doesn't require you to make any decisions if you just want to go by Bioware's word every time and have them make your decisions for you.

Whether you're happy or angry at the ending, know this: it is an ending. BioWare will not do a "Lost" and leave fans with more questions than answers after finishing the game, - mike gamble

Well some people out there didn't have any questions and the ending made complete sense to them (see those links I posted). May have not to you, but you're not everyone. Besides what Mike said doesn't classify as advertising, and all those promises go out the window when you buy the game. As long as they answered 98% of the questions and left the ending a bit vague, then they didn't lie about it.  A lot of those ending questions can be answered using a little common sense. Part of participating in a story, is that the reader (you) does some of the work. They can't do everything for you.

Once again playing fast and loose with the term "a bit vague", but its a nice spin to somehow make it my fault, but I refuse to play that game.

[spirosz]

Bioware promised things? Like they said that word?